Posts Tagged With: Iraq

WASHINGTON – The well-organized army of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, claims it has access to nuclear weapons and a will to use them to “liberate” Palestine from Israel as part of its “Islamic Spring,” according to a WND source in the region.

Franklin Lamb, an international lawyer based in Beirut and Damascus, said the move is part of the ISIS aim of creating a caliphate under strict Islamic law, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to Iraq.

Lamb, who has access to ISIS fighters and sympathizers, said ISIS has been working with a “new specialized” unit organized at the beginning of 2013 to focus “exclusively on destroying the Zionist regime occupying Palestine.”

Lamb added that the ISIS “Al-Quds Unit” is working to broaden its influence in more than 60 Palestinian camps and gatherings from Gaza, across “Occupied Palestine,” or Israel, to Jordan and from Lebanon up to the north of Syria “seeking to enlist support as it prepares to liberate Palestine.”

ISIS is also know as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham. “Sham,” or “Greater Syria,” refers to Cyprus, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and southern Turkey.

ISIS also is known as DAASH, the Arabic acronym for al-Dawlah al-Islamiyah fi al-Iraq wa-al Sham.

The Sunni militant group, which has taken over much of the Sunni region of Iraq, could leave the Shia-dominated region of the country and head toward Jordan and Turkey.

Lamb said that in Iraq alone, some 6 million Iraqi Sunnis recently have become supportive of the ISIS lightning strikes in the Sunni portion of the country.

Some of the Sunni supporters are secular, such as the Naqshbandia Army of former top officials of executed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. As WND reported, the Sunni group may have given ISIS access to its ongoing sarin production facility in northwestern Iraq.

The militant group also has steamrolled through the Iraqi desert in the west and taken over the major al-Walid crossing with Syria and the Turaibil crossing into Jordan.

Lamb said ISIS has established a capital for its caliphate in the Syrian city of Raqqa.

“The Islamist organization believes it currently has massive regional support for its rapidly expanding ‘revolution of the oppressed,’” Lamb said.

ISIS estimates it will take 72 months to “liberate” “Occupied Palestine,” or Israel, according to Lamb.

Lamb quoted an ISIS member as saying: “Zionists call us masked, sociopathic murderers, but we are much more complicated and representative of those seeking justice than they portray us.

“Are we more barbaric than the Zionist terrorists who massacred at Dier Yassin, Shatila, twice at Qana, and committed dozens of other massacres? History will judge us after we free Palestine.”

Lamb said ISIS can do what no other Arab, Muslim or Western backers of resistance have been able to accomplish.

He quoted the ISIS member as saying: “All countries in this region are playing the sectarian card just as they have long played the Palestinian card, but the difference with ISIS is that we are serious about Palestine and they are not. Tel Aviv will fall as fast as Mosul when the time is right.”

The WND source said ISIS appears “eager” to fight Israeli armed forces “in the near future despite expectation that the regime will use nuclear weapons.”

“Do you think that we do not have access to nuclear devices?” Lamb quoted the ISIS member as saying. “The Zionists know that we do, and if we ever believe they are about to use theirs, we will not hesitate. After the Zionists are gone, Palestine will have to be decontaminated and rebuilt just like areas where there has been radiation released.”

ISIS access to nuclear weapons could come from Sunni Pakistan, which is home to more than 30 terrorist groups. Pakistan possibly has transferred nuclear weapons to the chief bankroller of its nuclear development program, Sunni Saudi Arabia, as WND previously has reported.

The WND source said ISIS denies any interest in training and directing foreign fighters to attack Europe, claiming its goals are to establish the al-Sham caliphate and “liberate Palestine.”

The source said the West, and especially the Israelis, may already be aware of ISIS plans and tactics to take over “Palestine.” He said Western intelligence sources were in possession of an “encyclopedia of information” obtained by Iraqi intelligence less than 48 hours before Mosul fell two weeks ago.

He said an ISIS messenger who was captured and “under Iraqi torture” turned over more than 160 computer flash sticks with the detailed information.

“The U.S. intelligence community is still decrypting and analyzing the flash sticks,” Lamb said.

He indicated that the information already has been handed over to members of Congress, some of whom are sharing it with the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

“The current sense on Capitol Hill is reported to be that the Obama administration is not in the mood to share anything with Israel these days and certainly not with the Netanyahu regime which it loathes,” he said.

Lamb said only time will tell whether or not ISIS reaches both of its objectives. He added that if the “Zionist regime” can be ejected from Palestine, it will set in motion “historic currents” that will be “rather different from the Ehud Olmert-Condoleezza Rice fantasy of ‘a New Middle East.’

“In any event,” Lamb said, “it is unlikely that Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon among other countries in this region are going to look much like what George Bush and Dick Cheney and their still active neo-con advisers had in mind when they were beating the drums for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, Libya and now Syria and Iran.”

Dr Alexandra Fletcher (left) and Dr Tamar Hodos packing the items at Bristol’s Department of Archaeology in preparation for moving them to the British Museum

20 June 2014

An enigmatic box from a bygone era, filled with pottery, seeds and animal bones, has been discovered in the University of Bristol’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology. The box was found while researchers were emptying current laboratory spaces in preparation for the installation of a new state-of-the-art radiocarbon dating facility.

Index cards nestled amongst the objects in the box provided a clue to the origins of the material. Key words such as ‘Predynastic’, ‘Sargonid’, and ‘Royal Tombs’ suggested the remains came from the famous excavations by Sir Leonard Woolley in southern Iraq at the site of Ur during the 1920s and early 1930s.

The discovery is very exciting because environmental finds were rarely collected in this early period of archaeological fieldwork, especially from this part of the world.

Further investigation revealed that these were the remains of food offerings from a royal tomb at least 4,500 years old.

The original excavation was sponsored jointly by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and the finds were divided between London, Philadelphia and Baghdad, following the tradition of the era.

Therefore, Dr Tamar Hodos, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at Bristol, contacted Dr Alexandra Fletcher, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Curator of Near Eastern Archaeology at the British Museum, about where the material should be housed.

The British Museum immediately offered the remains a new home, where they will join the rest of the museum’s collection from Ur – holdings which are currently both on display (rooms 55-56) and part of a major digitisation programme sponsored by the Leon Levy Foundation and undertaken with the University of Pennsylvania Museum.

Dr Hodos said: “The remaining mystery is how this material came to be at Bristol in the first place. The environmental remains themselves were published in 1978 in Journal of Archaeological Science. The authors of that study were based at the Institute of Archaeology, London, and at the University of Southampton, and none of them had any known connection to the University of Bristol that might explain how the material came to reside here. If anyone can shed light on this mystery, we would love to hear from them.”

The University of Bristol’s new radiocarbon dating facility, due to open in the autumn of 2015, will allow Bristol to offer a world-beating service for the dating of ancient artefacts and ecofacts (organic material found at archaeological sites).

Did the ISIS in Iraq find Saddam Hussein’s WMD stockpiles of chemical weapons? While the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has been confirmed to have seized an old chemical weapons plant there seems to be a dispute over whether or not the remaining tons of chemical weapons like sarin and mustard could still be weaponized into a dangerous form.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, former CIA director Michael Hayden is claiming that the ISIS in Iraq have essentially won the war at this point and that it is very likely the nation will be split into three sections. Due to the Iraq crisis oil prices have jumped and some Americans may wonder whether this means U.S. gas prices will be rising soon, as well. But as it turns out China has a lot more to lose if Iraq’s oil supply is blocked even though America spent trillions of dollars on the Iraq war.

After the end of the Iraq War, Saddam’s missing WMDs were very controversial, leading some to claim President George W Bush lied about Iraq’s WMD programs. As one of the reasons for going to war, Bush had argued Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction might end up in the hands of terrorist groups like ISIS. After Iraq was occupied, reports from the CIA concluded they found Iraq’s WMD development programs, which included a very early development nuclear weapons program and an unexpected air force buried in the sand, but no large stockpiles of chemical weapons or other major WMDs… at first.

Tanks used to store Iraqi chemical weapons.

Wikileaks revealed in 2010 that during the occupation of Iraq the U.S. military discovered many small caches of chemical weapons, but others claimed that Russia had helped Hussein hide the most dangerous WMD stockpiles into Syria. The plot took a new twist when Syrian rebels began identifying weapons that came from Iraq last year. Then when Russia began to oversee Assad’s supposed disarmament of chemical weapons John A. Shaw, the former Pentagon official who claims to have tracked Iraq’s WMDs being moved out by Russian special forces, claimed that it was possible some of these chemical weapons were being hid back in Iraq.

Iraqi officials inspect a pile of destroyed chemical bombs.

With that history behind us, now The Telegraphreports that Iraq’s WMD programs may in fact end up being used by the al-Qaeda linked terrorist group ISIS:

“The jihadist group bringing terror to Iraq overran a Saddam Hussein chemical weapons complex on Thursday, gaining access to disused stores of hundreds of tonnes of potentially deadly poisons including mustard gas and sarin…. Isis has shown ambitions to seize and use chemical weapons in Syria leading experts to warn last night that the group could turn to improvised weapons to carry out a deadly attack in Iraq.”

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commander of Britain’s chemical weapons regiment, believes ISIS will not be able to build a fully functional WMD using Iraq’s chemical weapon stockpiles since they’re buried in concrete but they could still be dangerous:

“It is doubtful that Isis have the expertise to use a fully functioning chemical munition but there are materials on site that could be used in an improvised explosive device. We have seen that Isis has used chemicals in explosions in Iraq before and has carried out experiments in Syria.”

The State Department’s spokesperson Jen Psaki commented on the situation:

“We remain concerned about the seizure of any military site by the ISIL. We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to safely move the materials.”

Are you surprised that former President George W Bush may have been right about Iraq’s WMD programs created by Saddam Hussein?

This is very interesting and we all need to read it from start to finish. And send it on to everyone. Maybe this is why our American Muslims are so quiet and not speaking out about any atrocities.

Can a good Muslim be a good American?

This question was forwarded to a friend who worked in Saudi
Arabia for 20 years.The following is his reply:

Theologically – no.. Because his allegiance is to Allah, The
moon god of Arabia .

Religiously – no… Because no other religion is accepted by
His Allah except Islam. (Quran, 2:256)(Koran)

Scripturally – no… Because his allegiance is to the five
Pillars of Islam and the Quran.

Geographically – no.. Because his allegiance is to Mecca ,
to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially – no… Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him
to make friends with Christians or Jews.

Politically – no…. Because he must submit to the mullahs
(spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction
of America , the great Satan.

Domestically – no… Because he is instructed to marry four
Women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him. (Quran 4:34
)

Intellectually – no.. Because he cannot accept the
AmericanConstitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he
believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically – no… Because Islam, Muhammad, and the
Quran does not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and
Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial
or autocratic.

Spiritually – no… Because when we declare ‘one nation
under God,’ The Christian’s God is loving and kind, while Allah is
NEVER referred to as Heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in
the Quran’s 99 excellent names.

Therefore, after much study and deliberation… Perhaps we
should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. – – – They
obviously cannot be both ‘good’ Muslims and ‘good’ Americans. Call it
what you wish it’s still the truth.. You had better believe it. The
more who understand this, the better it will be for our country and
our future.
The religious war is bigger than we know or understand!

Footnote: The Muslims have said they will destroy us from
within.SO FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

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The drought parching the United States is one of the worst in the nation’s history, but it hasn’t been as destructive as the drought that may have withered ancient Egypt’s Old Kingdom. Pollen and charcoal buried in the Nile Delta 4,200 years ago tell the tale of a drought of literally Biblical proportions associated with the fall of the pyramid builders.

“Even the mighty builders of the ancient pyramids more than 4,000 years ago fell victim when they were unable to respond to a changing climate,” said U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt in a press release. “This study illustrates that water availability was the climate-change Achilles Heel then for Egypt, as it may well be now, for a planet topping seven billion thirsty people.”

Evidence of other empire toppling droughts lay buried in the sediments of the Nile River until it was dug up by a University of Pennsylvania doctoral student who now works for the USGS. The results were published in Geology.

Approximately 5,000 years ago, another drought may have hastened the demise of the kingdom of Uruk in what is now Iraq.

In an echo of modern times, Syria suffered during a drought 3,000 years ago. The Babylonians too felt the effects of famine from that drought. On the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, the Ugarit kingdom fell at that time.

“Humans have a long history of having to deal with climate change,” said study author Christopher Bernhardt. “Along with other research, this study geologically reveals that the evolution of societies is sometimes tied to climate variability at all scales – whether decadal or millennial.”

Bernhardt drilled into sediments laid down in the Nile Delta to get a record of what plants were growing, or burning, at different times in history. When pollen from water-loving plants decreased, he knew that the actual abundance of vegetation in ancient times had also likely decreased. An increase in charcoal meant that fire was ravaging the land of the pharaohs. A heavy layer of charcoal and thin layer of pollen was a good sign that a massive drought may have occurred.

Thirty-eight soldiers killed themselves in July, the worst month for suicides since the Army began releasing figures in 2009, according to Pentagon officials.

If soldiers continue to take their lives at the current rate, the Army will lose about 200 active-duty troops this year, a number that is significantly higher than any year in the past decade.
“Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army,” Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, who is leading the Army’s effort to deal with the problem, said in a written statement. “That said, I do believe suicide is preventable.”

In July there were 26 active-duty suicides and 12 suicides among National Guardsmen and reservists who were not serving in uniform at the time of their deaths. The combined 38 Army suicides is twice the number of troops killed in Afghanistan this month.

The Marine Corps had eight suicides in July, the highest monthly number so far this year, according to the Associated Press.

The losses are a significant blow to senior Army officials who had been hoping that the reduced rate of combat deployments and a series of initiatives to improve mental health care would result in a drop in the suicide rate, which surpasses levels for a similar civilian demographic.

In recent years the Army has tried to lower its suicide rate by hiring hundreds of new mental health and substance abuse counselors. But it isn’t clear that the additional resources have had an effect, and there is significant disagreement among mental health experts and military officers over how best to deal with the problem.